Anyone who has ever opened Pinterest knows it can be completely overwhelming. Maybe you started a wedding invitation board years ago, and now that you're engaged you have hundreds of pins that don't give you clear direction. Or maybe you're just getting started, but your board feels scattered.

For many years, and before Pinterest came along, I had a design blog. (It still exists — you can check it out)! On a weekly basis, I was creating inspiration boards to share, and it taught me a lot about creating a cohesive look for a project. It's time consuming, like a puzzle, and it takes practice. But if you follow these basic steps, in no time you should have a board that effectively communicates to your wedding planner (or just to yourself) what you envision for your wedding day. A cohesive Pinterest board can help make all of your wedding decisions easier. You'll be able to pull up an invitation design, for example, next to your Pinterest board and immediately know if it's a good fit for your wedding. Here's how:

1 Make a new board. Make a secret board, if you like!

2Go back to your old board(s) and pin ONLY your very favorite images onto the new board. Be practical, too. Consider the time of year you're getting married, your venue, and whether it's a morning, afternoon, or evening event (for level of formality). You won't be copying these pins exactly — so go ahead and pin that expensive embroidered dress — this is just to establish some inspiration.

3 Open up the new board and see what themes emerge. Is it dark and moody? Light and airy? Is there a definite color palette? Start deleting images that don't fit the overall look. If the board as a whole feels "wrong" but you can't tell why, use your thumb or a slip of paper to cover up an image or two. Does it feel more cohesive once that image is "gone?"

4Start deleting. You'll want to reduce your board to a small number of inspiration images (less than 20). Each one should fit with the others in style, color, and feel.

5Once you have your edited inspiration board of 10-20 images, create separate boards for things like dresses, hair, flowers, etc. Now that you have one cohesive inspiration board, you'll have a better sense of which dresses go with your overall theme, and which don't (and then you'll start editing your dress board down, too!).